“We are all aware of the fact that the architecture of the world is changing before our very eyes and it is our common responsibility to make it change for the better,” he said on Monday at the opening of a summit between China and the EU in Beijing.

Driven forward by Trump’s bonfire of the institutions of the the post-war US-led system, Europe may be finally emerging as an independent force. A strategically autonomous EU is a crucial part of the multipolar jigsaw, a fact recognised by both Russia and China, contrary to the claims of the western media.